Foul Matter

by Martha Grimes

  Clive looked out over the Hudson, at the mist that clung to its surface like a river specter, ghosting across the water’s surface. What he should have done when he was young was to catch a freighter. He could still do it . . . Oh, get real. Nothing kills you quicker than romancing things. The trouble with those romantic ideas is that your mind always shoots straight to the payoff—to the black sands and turquoise water, and you walking the beach; to the exotic and the beautiful. The mind skips right over the day-to-day stuff it takes to get to the good parts. Buy the castle in Scotland. The mind sees you moving through the baronial splendor of the big rooms, fingering the lush fabrics of draperies and sofas, conveniently omitting the hassle of moving the sofas in and hanging up the drapes, or the dreary cold from inadequate fires, the clanging pipes, the awful plumbing, the hook-nosed gardener, and the need for many servants. In other words, the daily grind, the dreadful awareness of being You again, only now you’re You again and cold as Scott of the Antarctic.

  And for you who abscond to backwoods cabins in Minnesota and Saskatchewan so that you can write that edgy memoir—are you going to set down the days and weeks each following one another until you collapse from the boredom of it all?

  “Mr. Editor, yo!”

  Clive jumped.

  “Man, you were orbiting. What the hell are you smoking?”

  “Hello, Danny. Marlboro Lights, a carnival of sounds and colors. I started again.” Clive dropped the cigarette, ground it with his heel, nodding at the white Dean & DeLuca bag Danny carried. “That where you do your grocery shopping?”

  “Absolutely. Best produce in town.”

  “Most expensive, that’s for sure.” The man had to be kidding. “You’re in the witness protection program, remember?”

  Danny winced. “Oh, come on. Who’d expect one of them to turn up in Dean and DeLuca?”

  “Well, hell, then, why don’t we meet in produce at Dean and DeLuca instead of this godforsaken pier?”

  “Dean and DeLuca ain’t a place for a meet, Clive. That’s what you got piers for. Come on. And what’s so ‘godforsaken’ about it?” Danny swept his arm out. “You got your skateboarding, your hoops down there”—he pointed into the darkness—“and there’s two more galleries opening in that warehouse.” He nodded to a place over Clive’s shoulder.

  Clive did not bother looking around. “Spare me Chelsea art. What about the, uh, contact, Danny?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I got a name for you. Did you get those details worked out? What we talked about?” Danny folded a stick of gum into his mouth.

  “Details?”

  “What we talked about.”

  Clive tried to call this up, which was hard with Danny’s damp brown eyes wide on him as eager as a Derby entrant a furlong from the finish. Then he remembered. “The hard-soft deal, the split? Sure. Fifty-five, forty-five, just what you asked for.”

  Danny kept looking at him. “And—?”

  “ ‘ And’?”

  “Jacket art.”

  “Oh, yeah. Jacket approval. No problem. It’s yours.”

  “And—?”

  Clive searched his mind but did he need one for this? “And . . . copy. You write your own copy?” That would be a break for Clive or a copy editor.

  “Good. Here.” Danny smiled as he handed over the white bag. “I think you’re gonna like it if I do say so. It’s set in Vegas.”

  “In Vegas? My, my. De Niro will be all over it. Come on, Danny, do you think that’s wise?” Wise? What in hell did wisdom have to do with any of this? “I mean, there was Casino, there was Bugsy—every mob story’s set in Vegas or New York.”

  Danny shut his eyes, pained by such obtuseness. He shook his head slowly. “No, no. This is way different. This is totally different.”

  Clive hated himself for asking, but he did. “How?”

  “Well, for one thing, it’s like a comparison with the Romans. All of them Caesars. Julius is only one—”

  “How does Julius get to Vegas?”

  Danny snorted. “You never heard of Caesars Palace? The old world and the new. Just read it, you’ll get it. It’s myths. That Bellagio place, you know, with the fountains out front, hell, that’s a myth run wild. I got another hundred pages done.”

  Myths. “I can hardly wait.” In some insane way, this was true.

  “And when it comes to movie rights, I get cast approval. And director. That’s important. Lynch would be right for it. Maybe Christopher Nolan. As me I see Pacino or maybe Ray Liotta. Joe Pesci, I don’t think so. But that newer guy, what the hell’s his name . . . ?” Danny was chewing gum furiously now, thinking of who he wanted to play him.

  “Good.” Clive smiled. “The name, Danny?”

  Danny snapped his fingers. “Vince Vaughn.”

  “Not the actor, Danny, the investigator.”

  “Oh, yeah. You got a pencil? Oh, a Montblanc, excuse me.”

  Clive had his pen out and gave Danny a sour look.

  “Blasé Pascal, that’s P-a-s-c-a-l. Phone number—”

  For a moment Clive was struck dumb. “Hold it. That’s a philosopher.”

  “What philosopher?” Danny frowned.

  “Blaise Pascal. He was a philosopher. You’ve heard of that famous wager—”

  “He’s Vegas, too?”

  Jesus! “This name. What is it, a pseudonym?”

  Danny shrugged, chewed his gum. “Fuck do I know? B-l-a-s-é P-a-s-c-a-l.”

  “Danny, that’s ‘blah-zay’ you’re spelling. Meaning, ‘apathetic,’ ‘bored.’ ”

  “Don’t blame me. Anyway, here’s the number.” He watched Clive write it down, then said, “So how’s Karl and Candy doing? They’re good, right?”

  “I don’t know. They’re certainly on the job. But would you please explain something?” He was feeling pretty damned edgy. “Why do these guys insist on getting to know the target? Or mark or whatever you call him?”

  Danny shrugged. “That’s how they operate.”

  But Danny, Clive felt, was not attending to his answers; his mind was all on the Dean & DeLuca bag and Vince Vaughn and his hundred pages. Clive said, “I can’t imagine wanting to know anything about the person I was hired to gun down.”

  “Me neither, but that’s us.” Danny shrugged his dark peacoat up around his shoulders. “You’ll get back to me on that”—a nod toward the manuscript—“real soon, okay?”

  Clive nodded. Blah-zay Pascal.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Arthur Mordred was eating a lemon crepe when Paul sat down at the table in the same espresso-cappuccino café. Paul had nearly missed him again, even though he’d seen him in here before. What was it with this guy? How did he manage to blend to the point of evaporation, like the steam coming off the espresso machine?

  “So, Paul,” Arthur said, “we meet again.”

  “I’m curious. Sammy says you can’t stand the telephone for, ah, business arrangements.”

  “True. They’re too easy to tap. I assume mine is.”

  “But isn’t it more dangerous to be meeting in public places?”

  “No.”

  Paul waited. No explanation. He sighed. “I wanted to tell you that Ned Isaly is going to Pittsburgh tomorrow.” Paul consulted a page of his small notebook. “In the morning on American Airlines.”

  “I know, 204. I got myself on the same flight.”

  Paul’s mouth dropped open. “How’d you—”

  A labored sigh was Arthur’s response. “Because I was in the travel agent’s at the same time. I am supposed to be following him. Though why anybody needs a travel agent to get to Pittsburgh, I ask myself. This guy’s the head-in-the-clouds type.”

  “Just keep him in view, that’s all.”

  His chin resting in his hand, Arthur made an ummm sound, as if he’d tasted something rich and sweet. “I love Pittsburgh, always have. My mother was born there. A gem of a woman, dead now, God rest her.” He polished off another bit of the crepe. “I can do this quickly if you’re in a hurry.
”

  Paul waved both his hands as if clearing the space between them of smoke. “You don’t remember what I said last time? Listen to me: remember that you’re not supposed to shoot him; you’re supposed to keep anyone else from shooting him.”

  Arthur looked at him for a blank moment, then squinched his eyes shut. “Oh, yeah. Sorry, sorry, I must’ve been thinking about someone else.” He forked up a piece of his lemon crepe.

  “Wait a minute!” Paul was beginning to panic. “You’re saying you forgot? You forgot what you’re supposed to do?”

  Arthur pulled a paper napkin from the aluminum holder and touched his mouth with it. “Paul, you’re much too excitable. But then I guess that’s because you’re a writer. You artistic people do seem to be high strung.”

  Paul glared. Then whispered, “Look, how do I know you won’t forget again? Jesus Christ, if you can forget once—”

  “Because I won’t.” Arthur grinned. “Never lost a client yet!” Arthur laughed, appreciating the double entendre.

  Paul realized he couldn’t pull Arthur off the job at this point.

  The white heat of Pittsburgh was coming up like the sun over the horizon.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Clive sat behind his desk, hands tented before his face, waiting for Pascal. He was afraid he was starting something he couldn’t stop, like a runaway train. Correction: he had already started something. What he was trying to do now was slow it down.

  Pascal’s secretary—he hadn’t talked to Pascal himself—hadn’t sounded smart, exactly, but she’d been perfectly polite. “Yessir, I was to tell you Tuesday at three P.M. if it suits your convenience.” The voice grew even more nasal when she got off phrases like “suits your convenience.” Clive pictured a soft pillowy-breasted blonde wearing something that showed her cleavage. She’d be chewing gum that she cracked or blew bubbles with.

  He shook his head to clear it. Had he fallen victim to such stereotyping because of this fucking Dwight Staines manuscript? StandOff. Clive wished Mr. Staines had been as parsimonious with the content as he had been with the title. The title promised all sorts of brevity, conciseness, and crisp prose. But no, the damned thing was six hundred pages long (a number that would be mercifully shortened in print) and the prose as turgid as ever. StandOff still sat in the same place atop his desk. Seventy-five pages was as far as he’d gotten. What he’d probably do would be to skip a couple of hundred pages and find something in the middle to comment on and editorialize over to keep Staines thinking he was really being edited. He’d already forgotten what was in the seventy-five pages he’d read. He actually did the exercise of setting his mind to remembering. All he could dredge up was that female on the train—Blanche? Belle?—and the only reason he remembered her was because she was irrelevant, even at that early stage of the character’s appearance.

  The trouble was that Dwight Staines had a way of asking, What do you think of this character or of that twist in the plot? Did you like the scene where—? That’s what Mercy Morganstein, Dwight’s former editor at Quagmire, had told Clive when she was chirruping away about Dwight. Mercy Morganstein was moving to another house. Hard to believe that the woman had actually liked these books. What she’d—what they’d—minded so much at Quagmire (she’d told him) was their not being able to work with “our Dwight.”

  “Mercy,” Clive had asked her, “did you ever talk to Staines about going with you?”

  No, she hadn’t. It had never occurred to her to do that. She’d sounded offended, as if this practice were unheard of and underhanded. It might have been underhanded, but it was hardly unheard of. An editor would be some kind of chump if he didn’t cart off as many writers as he could. It happened all the time when editors changed houses. The writers themselves would initiate this move if they had developed a tight relationship with their editors. But there was no convincing Mercy of this, and since Dwight Staines must be aware she was leaving, well, maybe he didn’t care or didn’t want her as an editor. Or, rather, he knew on which side his bread was buttered, for Mackenzie-Haack’s image was that of a “literary” publisher, whereas Quagmire’s was almost completely commercial. “Our Dwight” seemed to want to move up a rung. “Our Dwight” was an idiot if he really thought a more literary publisher would turn his sow’s ear into a silk purse. Oh, well. Dwight (Clive had heard) was doing one of his book tours, which would keep him out of the Mackenzie-Haack offices for three weeks.

  It was all a fucking mirage as far as Clive was concerned. But it was a mirage a lot of people swore was really that shining patch of water they took it for. All of these editors’ assistants and associate editors working at salaries so low you’d call it slavery, they wanted nothing but to become full-blown editors. The image they packed around was of Peter Genero and his dogs, or else Tom Kidd and his genius. You couldn’t dissuade them. You’ll never be Tom Kidd, he’d told the ones who had voiced this hope. Never. You’ll be like the rest of us.

  Us. When had he started devaluing his own work? That wasn’t hard to pin down: when he’d gone along with Bobby Mackenzie in this whole outrageous charade. Up to then, he hadn’t really given his work all that much thought.

  Amy’s voice: “There’s a Blase Pascal here to see you?”

  Pronounced by Amy to rhyme with “place.” Clive told Amy to send him in.

  Only “he” was a “she.” Clive, who prided himself on his cool head, gaped. Ms. Blaze Pascal (Danny Zito was hardly spelling bee champ) was a very good-looking woman with red hair. Fiery red hair, actually. He’d never seen any red like this red. When the light hit its copper surface, it spat sparks.

  He adjusted his expression as he rose to shake her hand and to indicate a comfortable leather chair for her. “You’ll have to pardon me; Danny didn’t tell me you were a woman.”

  “Mind if I smoke?” When he made a forgiving gesture, she drew out a silver case, offered him one. He said no, but picked up the table lighter—his nostalgic look back at a pack a day—and lit her cigarette. “Incidentally”—he paused, feeling a bit stupid, but his curiosity was killing him—“your first name, just what is it? How do you pronounce it?”

  “Oh? It’s Blaze. B-l-a-z-e, you know, as in fire.” She drew out a strand of hair, raised her eyebrows. “I got the nickname when I was in school and I couldn’t ever get rid of it.”

  “I see. Well, I suppose it does suit you.”

  She wasn’t listening to him; she was peering around the room. “Some office!” she said. Her glance seemed actually to light on this or that object admiringly—the Chinese vase, the cut-glass whiskey decanter (that Clive used only for visitors; he preferring the gin in the bottom drawer). “It beats mine all to hell, I’ll tell you. Mine’s the stereotype. Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe. The dank and dreary cell with the beige paint. Clients like that, surprisingly. You’d think they’d want some indication of success, palpable images—you know, like the real estate agent who drives a Jag. A visible show of riches. Uh-uh—” She pulled over an ashtray. “Once, I put in an espresso machine, but that kind of threw people off stride. What was I, anyway? A private eye or a Starbucks franchise? No, in this game you gotta stay with the stereotype. It’s hard enough being a woman in the trade, much less one who’s into a lot of yuppie shit. But I’ll tell you, it’ll be nice working for someone who knows the difference between Woolworth’s and Waterford”—here she tapped the cut-glass ashtray with a long fingernail—“and it’s gonna be my last job. Actually, I only said yes because Danny recommended you. Good publisher, he said. I read his book. Not bad. A writer’s life, that sounds like the best—”

  He stomped on it. “Ms. Pascal—”

  “Blaze.” She held out a strand of hair again, winked at him.

  “—you’re not thinking of writing a book, are you?”

  “Who, moi?” She pressed her hands against the green silk shirt that did much for her breasts. “You’re kidding. It never entered my mind.”

  Clive relaxed a little.

  “I shou
ld tell you, though, I’m particular about the kind of case I take. I don’t do divorces. I don’t bust into crumby hotel rooms with a flash and start snapping pictures. Which I never do; I don’t do stuff in the tits and dick department. I don’t do wires . . .”

  As she rambled on, Clive stared. What was going on in the underbelly of New York City, anyway? Where had they come from, these boutique killers who wouldn’t commit to a contract until they got to know their subject? Private eyes with more reservations than Danielle’s on a Thursday night? It was all so damned genteel anymore. He hoped he’d never have to hire a stalker only to be told: “I don’t do nasty messages; I don’t do telephone calls at three A.M.; I don’t go uptown if they move, which they usually do. I’m strictly TriBeCa, Village, SoHo, Chelsea. I might stretch a point and stalk the East Thirties, on occasion, if it’s absolutely necessary.”

  What in hell was New York City coming to?

  “Don’t worry. There’s nothing in this job that requires any of that. All I want you to do is follow this person.” (Should he come clean about Candy and Karl?) Clive shoved Ned’s book across the desk, back jacket open.

  She picked it up, looked at the photo. “An author! What’s he been up to?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You just want to know where he goes, what he does. Authors are pretty boring.” She raised the book. “Can I have this?”